by John Hook
“If these tunnels open up, there are going to be a lot of places to look for stuff,” Izzy said with a sigh.
“I think Guido would have put whatever we're looking for where we could find it.”
“So we're looking for an army?” Izzy repeated.
“Something like that. But you know it's never going to be that straightforward.”
We walked carefully along the tunnel. It was very narrow near the door and continued that way for quite a while, changing direction often. It left me with little sense spatially of where we were relative to where we had started out. Luckily, all we had to do to go back was follow the tunnel. Then, as I had feared, it opened up into a broader chamber. We walked through the chamber, knowing that there was a lot hidden from us back in the darkness. If we really had to search everywhere, it was going to take a very long time. We continued along the easy path in the middle of the chamber. It wasn't that it was well worn; who knew how long ago someone had walked here? However, it had been carved out a bit by whoever made the tunnels and it made an easier-to-navigate path.
Abruptly we came to a cliff face. It was made of black rock so it was hard to tell that it wasn't just more darkness. It was flat, almost polished, and felt like solid rock. It rose up as far as we could see and it felt solid. Maybe that's why whoever made the tunnels couldn't go through it. The question I had was whether there was a way around. I had an odd feeling as I touched the rock. There was something familiar about it. I was just turning to ask if Izzy or Saripha felt anything when I caught a flutter of motion in my peripheral vision. It had been down by one end of the wall. I stared into the blackness, but there didn't seem to be anything there. Then I noticed a slight, very distant illumination.
I ran down along the front of the rock face until I came to a dead end and then turned right into a small chamber that looked like it had been carved out. There was a dim light in one corner.
“Saripha! You’d better come see this.”
Saripha came up to me with Izzy right behind.
“Hard Caaaase!” Guido's voice echoed slightly in the chamber.
In front of us stood what appeared to be Guido, but you knew there was something odd about it. It was like a dim hologram, giving off weak light with washed-out colors. Guido was mostly standing still but he kept shifting weight and motioning in repeating patterns such that it was like watching a tape loop.
“What the hell is that?” Izzy asked.
“A wraith,” both Saripha and I said at the same time.
“A what?”
“We encountered one of Rox before.”
Saripha continued. “It's like a slice of a glamour that whoever creates it can use to encode memories, usually to give a message. It is like a fragment of that person.”
I noticed that Guido was looking directly at me and not at Saripha. Definitely proved it wasn't the real Guido.
“Guido, do you know where the army you wanted me to find is?”
“Take me there. I can summon them.”
“Take you where?”
“Take me there; I can summon them.”
“Great, a broken record.”
“I think I know,” Izzy blurted out.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you feel something when we were standing next to that wall?”
“You felt it too, Izzy?”
“I sure felt something,” Saripha added.
“Did you recognize it?” Izzy directed his question to me.
“Yeah, thought I did.”
“That's because we felt it before, the first time we came to Chadikar.”
“We must be under it. Behind that wall is...” I looked at Izzy. “We're talking about an army of the dead?”
Izzy shrugged. “Not much stranger than anything else here.”
“Okay. Let’s give it a try.”
“Take me there; I can summon them.”
“Probably needs to be up top or he would have summoned them already.”
Saripha came over. We took the wraith and rolled it up like a rug and headed back for the chamber. We wound our way back up to the square in Chadikar and headed to the river. An underground river and a canal of lava crossed in Chadikar. We entered the tunnel that the river came out of and walked to the first bend.
In front of us loomed the carved stone totem pole of what could be Manitor faces. They were animal faces but they had been given human face features, which made them seem eerie and otherworldly. At the bottom was a bear, then a coyote, then a raven, then a wolf and finally an eagle. Whoever had done the carving, it was exquisite and the faces seemed alive.
We moved around the stone column into the chamber that opened up behind it. Now we were getting the sensation we had experienced previously full blast. It was like a base note in the pit of our stomachs. There were rows of rounded stone markers with strange language symbols written on them. It definitely looked like a cemetery.
“I think this is it.” I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.
“Considering there are a lot of dead running around this place, who do you think these are?”
“I'm guessing, that ancient race we have heard about.” I surveyed the graves.
“I definitely sense something very old and very powerful here.” Saripha took the roll we had made and opened it up. The Guido wraith stood there. Without even acknowledging us, he raised his powerful arms up. He raised his dog muzzle up and a sound started deep in his throat. It began rising in pitch and loudness until at last it became a howl that was unlike any sound I had ever heard a dog make. It was eerie, rising from his throat, seeming to wrap itself around us. I could see the earth undulating throughout the cemetery. Stones fell over. Dirt sprayed. Rocks opened up all the way to the surface. Light poured in from the world above us. Finally, there was a sound like thunder, only deafening. A wind suddenly kicked up, dirt flying in our faces. The ground was shaking and I couldn't keep my footing. Finally, the ground seemed to explode.
Out of the ground rose the skeletons of men and horses. Actually, both were guesses. The “men” were humanoid, wearing armor formed by hardened leather, which hadn't deteriorated from whatever time had been spent down in the soil. Some had leather helmets, others just the bone of their skulls. Some carried spears made of carved wooden shafts with sharp stones affixed at one end. The skeletal mounts they rode had heads that had more of a forehead than standard horses and some sported a pair of horns. They also had leather armor belted around their midsections. Being skeletons, neither man nor mount needed the armor, but it did make them look even more formidable.
Up they rose, shrieking. I had no idea how they could shriek given they had no flesh, but at the time I was just trying to keep from being trampled as the army came out of the earth like a runaway tornado. As they rose up, one of them grabbed me like I weighed nothing and threw me up on the saddle behind him. As the horseman shot up towards the newly revealed sky, I could see other horsemen grabbing up Saripha and Izzy. I don't know what happened to Guido's wraith. Maybe it was buried in the dirt that was knocked loose. It didn't matter. Its purpose had been fulfilled.
It wasn't a large army in conventional terms, maybe 250 horsemen altogether. However, they were impressive. They all hovered in the sky as Saripha and Izzy and I were all brought up to the front. One very large warrior floated up on his skeletal horse. He looked at me closely with empty eye sockets but didn't say anything. He just stared. I realized they were awaiting instructions. Guido had raised this army, but they were going to follow me.
“To Antanaria!” I shouted, hoping they actually knew what Antanaria was. “Free Kanarchan!”
With that the skeletal warriors circled the sky and we shot out in the lead. The rest of the swarm followed immediately.
19.
It occurred to me, once we were high enough in the sky, to wonder whether the skeletal horse I was on could hold the weight of a real body. I was hoping I would hover before I hit the ground, but I was worrie
d about Izzy and Saripha. Even knowing that I could probably save myself from a fall didn't make being this high up any easier to take. We were up over the clouds. I didn't know if skeletons were capable of strategy and tactics, but it seemed as if we were using the clouds for cover as we approached Antanaria.
None of the warriors made any sounds. Not the screams they had first made, nor anything else. It was, in fact, a very eerie ride as our velocity whipped wind past us. Probably if they had made any sounds we wouldn't have heard them and if they had intelligence, they didn't seem capable of communication. If they were magical robots of some sort, where was the control? How did they know what they needed to do? In fact, did they know what they needed to do? From up here, I had no idea if they were really taking us to Antanaria.
In part to keep myself from looking down, I studied the skull of the rider I sat behind. I'm no anthropologist, but he looked human. No fangs among the teeth, a reasonable amount of forehead. He had an average-sized brain at one time, even if the bones were now animated by something else.
I liked physics. I didn't like magic, even my own magic. This place had taught me to respect magic because it really couldn't be denied. Saripha had taught me that magic was a kind of physics. It had rules of its own and ultimately any true physics would have to account for magic. It wasn't something that existed apart from the rest of the universe. Let alone multiverses. I shook my head. The things I’ve had to get used to in this world. The rider turned his head around further than I suspect a living flesh-and-blood person could. It was as if he could hear what I was thinking. There was, of course, no change in facial expression, but when a skeleton looks right at you, you can't help but think they’re grinning. I gave him a thumbs-up (but only one—I wasn't letting go with both hands). He turned back around and I grabbed back on. Good thing I did.
We dropped down suddenly out of the cloud layer and we were over the desert. In the distance was Antanaria. I allowed myself to look down. I could see Roland's and Kyo's units that had gathered just outside the city. They had crude shelters erected with a covering. I couldn't tell at this height and speed what the material was, but I assumed they were so troops could take shelter from the sun. I saw Kyo and Roland at the front of the troops. All eyes turned skyward as we thundered across the sky.
I turned my attention back to where we were headed. Clearly the Hadaran had seen us. They began circling in a wider oval, keeping the top of the central tower at the center. There were bright flashes of light in the sky above them and more riders began cascading down the waterfall of light similar to what I had seen over Rockvale, all carrying their staffs with energy glowing at the tip. They still didn't have the numbers to match the skeletal riders, but they made quite a display of power and, frankly, I wasn't sure how even magically animated bone would hold up to the Hadaran. However, grateful as I was for the help, this wasn't the battle we, Saripha, Izzy and I came to fight. I saw Saripha touch the shoulder of her rider. He turned and Saripha pointed to the tower. Her rider looked first to my rider and then to Izzy's. All three nodded and all three peeled away from the swarm with the grace and execution of a Blue Angel air show. Had about the same effect on my stomach.
I noticed another small group of riders also separate and follow us. The rest headed straight for the Hadaran and began that eerie screaming sound, which seemed to get louder and louder.
We landed on the roof of the tower and we all jumped off our mounts. The skeletal horses reared up on their hind legs and then rose back up into the sky. High above us, most of the 250 skeletal warriors slammed into maybe fifty or sixty Hadaran. In the violent cloud of shattering bone and energy bolts, it was hard to tell who would have the advantage.
Saripha grabbed my shoulder. “We didn't come here to witness.” As if to drive home her point, two energy bolts struck near us. A handful of Hadaran had broken away from the others and were headed for the rooftop to stop us. That's why a group of skeletal riders had come with us. They rose up screaming to meet the Hadaran at a distance from the roof.
“Izzy, you might want to get off the roof and find your way to Roland and Kyo.”
“Not a chance, Blue Boy. Last line of defense and all that.” Izzy had his bow strung, watching. He turned to Saripha and me. “Besides, if we don't pull this off, I’d just as soon be with you two when we don't pull it off.”
I wanted to argue, but there wasn't time.
“Stop!”
I spun around. Approaching us on his platform was the new metal Shade I had seen before. He still didn't look much surer of himself, but his body was still transformed into the rough–surfaced, rock-like metal. Despite that, Izzy aimed an arrow at him and remained poised to release it.
“Get out of here, junior.”
“You'll respect me when I stop you.”
I sighed. “You got a bum deal. You’re being pulled off the bench in the middle of a game you don't even understand. I've handled one like you before and one that had your powers plus the illusion powers. I don't even have to kill you. I can just absorb the power from your platform.”
He hesitated.
“Get out of here!”
Suddenly an energy bolt hit near him. It startled him and he jumped from his platform instead of gliding away on it. He had miscalculated how far he could jump and went over the side of the tower.
Izzy and I looked at each other and broke out laughing. It was mean, but I figured as long as he kept his body metal he would survive the fall, although it would take him a while to dig out of the crater he would create.
I turned back to Saripha. Stray bolts were hitting around the area, although the skeletal riders were keeping them mostly away from us. However, we needed to get things done as quickly as possible.
The trouble is, neither of us knew exactly how to do this. Adaxa had merely said I could. I had the power. I was just going to have to see if I could figure it out. However, that was the way I did most everything here. I figured I was going to have to use my energy to find Guido's energy trapped in the form of the sleeping Magister. I was also assuming having a boost from Saripha's energy would help make the connection faster and perhaps awaken him faster. Beyond that I was clueless. I was hoping maybe Guido would know.
I sat down cross-legged at a sufficient distance that, if the Magister's body started flailing, we would be out of the way. Saripha sat behind me, right up against me. She put her arms around me, placing her hands on my chest. I could feel a warm flow from her hands start to fill me. It seemed to collect at the base of my spine and then my own energy intertwined with it. I turned inward and focused on my breathing. With each breath acting like a bellows, energy began to both climb my spine and radiate out from it. I could feel centers of energy start vibrating like they were being flicked on with a switch as the energy moved up the spine. The energy wasn't jagged or hot or uncomfortable. It was more like a vibration, warm and flowing and droning in the background. The energy was blue and white with gold at the edges. I realized the white was Saripha. The gold was our union in the sense of our spirits intimately conjoined. Spiritual connection was the ultimate intimacy.
I spun the energy outward. Most of it formed spinning disks around us, but tendrils reached out to the statue-like Magister seated and bound on the throne. I was picking up different and conflicting energies from within the Magister. Some of it seemed almost toxic and I withdrew my energy immediately. Other energy seemed to want to overpower mine and induce sleep. Again, I had to withdraw from it and set up an energy barrier to that harmonic. I kept reaching out to find Guido, but having to erect the barriers made it harder.
“Here, let me help.” It was Saripha whispering in my ear, although at first it was a buzzing sound and then I transformed the buzzing into her words. Her white energy glowed brighter and I heard her calling to Kanarchan. She rarely used the name Guido anymore. That's when I felt the energy connect to Guido's energy and the harmonics of all the energies vibrated sympathetically. I heard his voice clearly in my head,
although it was a little weak.
“Come. I am here.”
I found myself wandering in a maze of rock. It might have been an old fortress, I couldn't tell. I could hear an occasional roar, although I didn’t know what would make such a roar. Then I would hear a succession of thuds like something very big stomping on the stones beneath my feet.
“Keep coming. You will find me.”
As I made my way through the maze, I realized I was attuned to Guido's energy. When I came to junctures with more than one choice of where to go, one choice would always result in my body glowing bluer and a stronger sense of the energy. It was as if I had an internal map of the maze. I followed the stone passageways around and around. The energy was feeling stronger and stronger. The roars and stomping were getting louder as well.
“Quentin! No!”
Izzy was shouting. I snapped back into the reality of Hell. A Hadaran on his steed was riding straight for me with his energy staff glowing. I raised myself and stepped away from Saripha, who remain locked in a deep trance. However, before I could act, Izzy leapt between me and the Hadaran, taking his shaft right out of his hand. Izzy spun the staff around. When the energy at the tip connected with the Hadaran, he flew from his horse and over the side of the roof. Izzy flashed back to me.
“Sorry I used your name. Finish what you're doing. We've got this.”
“Yeah, I think you do.”
I sat down with Saripha again. Without coming out of her trance, she wrapped herself around me again. She had maintained the connection while I was out and I returned, with just a little breathing, to the rock maze.
Finally, I came to the end of the maze. To the right was the entrance to a chamber. To the left, outside the stone wall, was the Magister, just as gigantic as he appeared on the roof. He looked like an old-school model animation monster in that his movements were jerky and awkward, but powerful. He would stomp up and down and occasionally look into the maze and then throw back his head and roar. He was raw power, no intelligence. A bogeyman, no doubt. He peered into the maze and saw me and became very agitated and angry. He reached into the maze. I ducked away from the large hand and ran into the chamber on the right.
